InTechnology VBAK Update

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E-PDP at Westminster The good, the bad and the
ugly
Lia Papachristou Online Learning
Officer University of Westminster papachl_at_wmin.ac.
uk
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Introduction

• How ePortfolios have been used in SABE
• Support for staff and students
• Benefits for staff and students
• Our wish list for Blackboard
• Whats next and Conclusions

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The story so far..

• Blackboard Academic Suite, version 8.0.2
• E-PDP first introduced in 2005
• Portfolio examples drawn from SABE
• 3 years of experience lessons learnt
• All portfolios are assessed up to and incl. level
  7

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The story so far..

• Blackboard Academic Suite, version 8.0.2
• E-PDP first introduced in 2005
• Portfolio examples drawn from SABE
• 3 years of experience lessons learnt
• All portfolios are assessed up to and incl. level
  7

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We are happy about
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Benefits for staff

• Management contained in multiple e-environments
• No more paper, reduced physical load
• Flexibility can be accessed and marked anytime,
  anywhere
• Assessment is pre-published and standardised
• Provides opportunities to improve IT skills
• Evolving / ongoing development of PDP
• Ability to comment/feedback quickly
• Multiple markers

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Benefits for students

• Easy to set up for those with limited skills
• Convenience (all in one place pdp model
  templates)
• Educating (IT literacy) confidence builder
• Examples of students who have achieved success
  outside UNI
• Students see their own progression- every year
• Monitor progress

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Other systems used

• Unique in bringing a mix of IT to the process
• In that we use
• Student developed templates (html, edited with
  Frontpage (on CD)
• Microsoft Publisher
• Google Sites
• i-web
• One.com
• Webs.com
• Freewebs.com
• WARNING PERSONAL SECURITY
• ADVISE TO USE PASSWORDS,
  SENSIBLE ABOUT INFORMATION THEY ARE
  PUBLISHING, CD AND OFF WEB, RISKS (FACEBOOK),
• NAIVETY, MINING SOFTWARE

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Support for students

• Academic -
• Students attend classes to find out the
  requirements
• Comprehensive PDP Model on Blackboard
• FAQs and Guides

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Support for students

• Technical-
• Technical sessions on how to use Blackboard to
  create an e-portfolio run by Online Learning Dpt
• How To guides on Blackboard
• IT guides and web templates
• Support staff providing last minute help before
  deadlines

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Support for students

• Mentoring scheme
• Student mentors recruited by SABE to help
  students
• Know the subject matter and requirements
• Mentors use their experiences and improve their
  own skills

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We are sad about
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Things that can go wrong

• IT Generally
• Systems going down for various reasons
• Lack of skills (sts)
• Fear of technology (esp. mature sts)
• Sharing
• Students did not share the eportfolio early
  enough
• Students did not build their eportfolio
  gradually (underestimate workload, leave it too
  late)

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Our Wish List for Blackboard

• Preparing the portfolios/ Designing activities
• the way the files are added first and then
  linked too is too cumbersome and confusing
• ability to edit pages on the fly, have
  application modules so that for instance students
  can embed you tube videos, embed google map views
  and even embed some work that they have done
  elsewhere
• pasting spreadsheets has always been quite
  problematic - they go out of focus, they become
  messy and need a lot of fiddling about
• design of Blackboard templates is hostile (not
  interactive, cannot be made interactive) Web
  templates do not work on Blackboard!
• ability to edit backgrounds without the need to
  fiddle about with html

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Our Wish List Part 2

• Submission-
• As the eportfolio cannot be frozen, students
  were asked to download the eportfolio onto a CD
  as a zipped file but this caused some technical
  problems
• We want to get an email alert when comments are
  left
• Feedback and marking
• Comments system clunky, not per page etc.
• Blackboard need to develop a marking facility
  (templates)
• Automated tick-off when a task is complete
• Ability to search content in a portfolio and in
  all shared portfolios
• Downloading/saving portfolios
• A very complicated process currently.
• Images and files added through the WYSIWYG
  editor or linked to from My Content do not get
  downloaded

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Our Wish List for Blackboard
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Where we are now
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Can you guess where we are going?
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Pre-2005
2005-6
2006-7
2007-8
2008-9
2009 ?
Alternative systems and technologies
Ready for change
Ill be part of something big important
Everything on my mobile iMacMe and MobileMe,
Twittering
Evaluating/advancing
Re-designing re-modelling
Ill need new skills